


with a whisper, we will tame

by theviolonist



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with a whisper, we will tame

Erica could've decided to take her breakfast at home this morning. Maybe this would've changed everything. 

But maybe not. Somehow, she's certain that they would've found their way back to each other. Not in a romantic way, Erica's not exactly, completely the romantic type, but more in a - in an inevitable way. Back then, there were days they weren't supposed to see each other at all, but they kept happening onto each other anyway. Erica wouldn't stumble and stammer, but she'd be surprised - and Franky could see it, back then. She'd smirk, rock back on her heels...

Anyway. So they were going to meet again. Maybe not today, maybe in ten years, maybe in another country. Maybe not at all, and Erica's just kidding herself, thinking that this is fate, or at least a revengeful sort of karma. She didn't want to eat breakfast in this morning. The house is still too big, too impersonal, it looks too much like her. The divorce papers on the kitchen table. Better leave the house early, she'd thought, and then tonight... I'll sign. 

It's not even that she doesn't want to. She wants to - she's the one who asked for this divorce, and besides, it's been forever since they split up. No, she'll sign the papers, gladly. It's just that, well - divorce papers, you know? It just feels so _final_ , like you've failed. There's that thing in your life that you attempted and you just screwed up. No turning back. 

If it were any other day, Erica wouldn't remember all that. She would have filed the whole thing under 'regular morning' and that would've been it. But every detail of that morning is fixed in her memory: what she was wearing, where the papers were, exactly, the fact that she forgot her keys and had to go up the stairs again to take them on the door, and she hates that. She's not a thoughtless person. What she thought then: _fucking divorce_ , and how she decided that everything that went bad that day would be those papers' fault. 

 

What chance was there, really? Erica's been going there for years. Good eggs, passable coffee. Her cell buzzes on the table. 

"Hello? Yes, Mark, I got them. Thank you. Yes, by tomorrow. Is it that urgent? Oh, okay then. I'll see you tonight. Love you."

They still say that. They said that before they loved each other, during, and now. It doesn't mean anything, really. Erica's never bought into this whole terror of saying the words thing. If you love someone, _that's_ terrifying. Saying it is just collateral. Even that - Erica loved Franky, but she never had to say it, you know? It was a long time ago. One kiss.

Does Franky hear her then? Or before, when she says 'hello'? Is this one of those things, where you can just - pick the other out of the crowd, instant recognition, true love and all that? 

"Erica?"

Maybe. 

So, here: Franky Doyle. She's not in Wentworth anymore, obviously, Erica knew that, but - she tends to think about the prisoners as... gone when they leave the prison. As though they just evaporated once they set foot outside the gates. It's best. You can't treat someone like they have to treat the prisoners if you see them as ultimately equal. It's sad, but it's true. Of course Erica will never say it. She fights against this kind of thing. Franky saw through her, though. She said it: _You get off on being here. You're like us._

Franky Doyle. She hasn't changed. Same grin, same tattoo peeking from her neckline, makes you want... want. Same intoxicating eyes. Her voice. She was always too much. She's not in blue. Leather jacket and jeans.

_It's Miss Davidson._

"Franky." Erica clears her throat. "What are you doing here?"

Franky tilts her head. She still does that, too, then. "Could ask you the same question," she says as she slides into the booth. 

It's Erica's day off, but Franky doesn't need to know that. Erica will claim work and leave. It itches - that or fall back into the same patterns, face first, where you just can't get out, can't breathe between two horrible decisions. 

"I live down the corner," Erica says before she can get better of it. 

Franky laughs, does that thing with her face, jutting her chin forward, that says, _I'm interested in what you're saying but really I'm interested in you_. "Do you?"

"You look well."

She does. She hasn't changed, but she looks well. She was beautiful in there, and that hasn't changed, but there's something else. Less pain, as cliché as that sounds. Maybe - 

"I am. Miss Davidson," she shakes her head, as though she can't believe her eyes, "Erica," softer.

Erica touches her hair self-consciously. She knows she looks tired. She is. "Franky," she says with a helpless little sigh that she didn't intend.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Erica could pretend they don't drink each other in, but they do. Erica reviews the things she could say, about the things she might and might not have done back then, asking Franky to never kiss her again, you hear me? Or I'll report you.

And Franky... _Why are you doing this?_

"I came to see you, you know," Franky's saying. She takes a sip of Erica's coffee. Erica is acutely conscious of her hand on the table, much too close to Franky's. She can't take it back, though, it would be conspicuous, awkward.

"When?"

"After I got out."

She got out a year early. Good behavior, after that kiss. Not top dog anymore, Bea was doing that. Franky had a hard time at first, but then she got her degree, and, well. She had another tutor. Erica didn't change that immediately, only after a while, so that Franky wouldn't protest. The same thing you do with babies: let them get accustomed to the alternative before you take their favorite toy away.

"At my house?"

Franky nods. "I looked in the phonebook. I was surprised - it's dangerous, isn't it?"

"I know. I'm not in there anymore." After the wedding, it was Mark's name instead. Erica kept hers. Erica Davidson. She can't really be anyone else, can she? As hard as she tries. 

"Mm. Well, anyway... you weren't there."

"You didn't come back?"

Franky laughs again. "Ha! No. No, I didn't." She looks Erica straight in the eye, this sort of situation where you can't look away, that cliché trick of everything else in the room falling away. Franky shakes her head. She doesn't have that little braid anymore. Her eyes are still boring into Erica's. "No. I loved you back then, you know."

 

"Why are you doing this?"

If there were glass in the office - there isn't, of course, it's against regulations -, Erica is sure Franky would already have shattered it against the wall. As it is, though, she's standing in front of Erica's desk, her back slumped like she's going to jump, her eyes half pleading and half furious.

"If you have to ask, Franky... it just proves I'm making the right choice."

Oh. There's not a choice to make, though. Only one road in this situation. 

"You _kissed_ me, Erica. You can't just pretend it never happened."

"Don't tell me what I can do." She's always been good at the ice-cold voice. Even when she was a kid: _Don't touch that, Suzy. Don't!_

Franky shakes her head, her hair flying over her face. Her eyes are dark and wet, her mouth bitten. Erica wishes she'd waited a little, so she could've let herself slip once more, indulged herself.

"I know you want this."

"It doesn't matter."

"It's all that matters!"

She's like a child, sometimes. But then, she doesn't exactly live in the real world, does she? She lives in this microcosm where she controls everything and, at the same time, is utterly powerless. 

Erica sighs. "Franky..."

"You're lying. You're lying to yourself, Erica." She looks disgusted, like she's tasting something sour. "What are you going to do now, eh? Go home and fuck... whatever his name is? You're going to marry him?"

It's convenient, in a way, that thing where Franky's anger makes Erica angry too. If it wasn't the case all this would have to be much more logical, clinical. Painful, but in a different way. This still pulses in Erica's chest, a loud, hoarse heartbeat. Everything's not about life, not about _her_ life - it's about love and anger and rage, those flaring ideas that she can fight about but not really wrap her mind around. 

"Yes."

Franky keels over. For a moment she looks really vulnerable, and Erica wonders - is she going to cry? Scream? But then she unfolds, stands up straight, wiping her eyes in one press of her fingers. "You'll regret this," she says softly, pitying. 

"You can leave now."

Erica rests her forehead in her hands. Her palms are clammy and red where she rubbed them against her thighs, to keep from reaching out. 

 

"What did you do, after you got out?"

Maybe she can't ask those questions. There probably is protocol, actually, about how a Governor is supposed to act when they come across a former prisoner. And besides, someone in Erica's office still monitors Franky, so she could know - if she wanted, she could know what Franky did. She could've known, a long time ago. 

The coffee is cold. It's a good thing she doesn't have work, she wouldn't have made it. Why does Franky still have the same mannerisms? She moves her hands. She smiles, so high, so bright, so wide... she can't always mean it. Nobody else in Erica's life smiles like that. Good thing, too. It would drive her crazy if they did. 

There's a lighter in her hand, silver. Such a cliché. She caps and uncaps it, and the little spark jumps up near the cuff of her jacket. Erica's eyes keep flitting to it, she's afraid it will catch fire. Leather doesn't catch fire easily, though, does it? 

"Did the lawyer thing for a while. Then I got bored."

Erica chuckles. For some reason that makes her relax, the easiness she finds in Franky, something she remembers well from her best memories. "I can imagine that."

"What about you? Are you still the Governor?"

Erica shakes her head no. She was never going to be Governor for long, anyway - it was always an echelon, a step to something better. 

"Let me guess... commissioner's office?"

Erica nods. Franky grins at her, impious. "I missed you," she says after another sip of cold coffee, her face screwing in a grimace as it touches her lips. "This is disgusting."

Erica is still stuck on the missing part.

 _I missed you too._ For a second she thinks about directing that old question of Franky's against her: _why am I really here?_

"I have to go."

Franky ducks her head. She looks disappointed, but also like she expected it. It makes Erica angry. 

"Okay."

Erica gets up and starts collecting her things on the table. Wallet. Keys. "So, did you end up marrying him?"

She looks less angry than before. That's what's frightening about this. Nothing was possible back then. Tragic, yes, doomed and romantic and horrible, but possible - no. She looks like she's dropped the fury. 

Erica goes to smooth her skirt on her thighs but thinks better of it - her hands are clammy. Instead she slips her keys in her bag. "I did."

Franky watches her walk away. For some reason - no, that's not true, she knows why - Erica waits until she's at a safe distance and turns around, says, "But it's over now. I guess you were right."

The black spreads over Franky's eyes like spilled ink. 

 

"Will you marry me?"

He _has_ to ask again, does he? It's a form of pressuring, Erica knows that. Getting on his knees and all that, as though _he_ was the vulnerable one here, as though he was the one committing to being inferior, subservient... no, she shouldn't think like that. It isn't fair. Smile, Erica. 

"I will," she says. 

Mark has stars in his eyes. Is he really an idiot, or is she just a really good liar? Erica considers saying it as he kisses her, laces their hands behind her back, threatening to suffocate her. _I don't love you._

Afterwards she'll wish she'd done that night differently. Made him stay on his knees longer, stared down at him and hold back the answer, pretended it wasn't as easy to say because only lies are easy. But he didn't notice, anyway. 

He fucks her slowly and sweetly, like an old friend. Makes dinner. There's a brunch, Erica works, takes two days' leave. Where will they go on their honeymoon? Suzy wants to know, and Erica stalls. Honeymoon? She doesn't want to go on a honeymoon. But Mark will. 

Maybe they can learn to compromise. Yeah? How does that sound? 

He makes dinner again. The prison is at the back of Erica's mind, that kiss, that fucking kiss that makes her wet sometimes when she's eating prosciutto at lunch with Mark, in a crowded restaurant, and she has to glue her knees together and think of roadkills or wedding plans. Brunch is such a stupid invention.

Franky doesn't run at her in the yard anymore. She did, for a few weeks, but then she gave up. You've got to, at some point, right? But Erica is selfish. She wanted to have that forever, too, the _option_. Franky leaning against the doorframe of her office, hip cocked and smirking. ( _Come here. I'm going to kiss you again. You're not going to pull away._ )

When the time comes to choose a dress, Erica picks the third one she tries on, already tired of all the clasps, meringue and taffetas. It's decided, she says, trying to look like the women in the movies when they fall in love with the dress they'll get married in, little girl's dream and all that; she'll walk down the aisle in white, a simple dress with a bustier. No taffetas, thank god for that. 

 

"Wait."

Of course she was hoping for this. Franky's fingers around her wrist, that hand on her waist, pushing her against the wall... and before she can see, before she can fully comprehend what's going on or even glance at Franky's dilated pupils, Franky's mouth on hers, hot and urgent and different and _the same_ , tasting of cold coffee and those five years since she got released, the heat and the anger and Erica's divorce papers. 

Franky's hands are everywhere on Erica's face, overwhelming - on her cheeks and on her jaw, thumbs brushing her lips and bruising, Franky's thigh jammed between Erica's and their hips pressed together. They're in public. 

Doesn't everyone wonder, though, how it feels to be kissed breathless? 

It subsides. The franticness, it subsides after a while, even though Erica's sure it's long enough that her lips are swollen and her hair a complete mess, but eventually Franky's just leaning against her, resting her forehead against Erica's, fingers threading in the wispy hair at the nape of her neck.

"I missed this," Franky says. 

" _This_ only happened once."

Franky shrugs, grins. "What can I say, it was unforgettable."

Erica draws her in again, her arms threaded around Franky's neck. They kiss, hot and unhurried, lazy like they really do have all the time in the world. "Yeah," she says eventually, half hoping Franky doesn't hear her. 

 

"You remember that time you made us write those speeches?"

" _Helped that she was hot_ ," Erica singes, rolling her eyes.

"Eh! That's a terrible impression. That doesn't sound like me at all."

"That sounds _exactly_ like you."

Franky laughs. "Anyway. I write now."

Erica rolls over on her stomach, twisting the sheet around her. "What? You mean, novels?"

Franky nods. The sheet slips on her chest, but she doesn't care. She's gotten more tattoos since she got out. Erica traced them all with her tongue, and she will again. She will take Franky apart, just like Franky did with her, way before they were even here, in a bed together. 

"Yeah."

 _Am I in one of them?_ Erica doesn't ask.

Franky gets up on her knees and crawls to her, bends to kiss her, flattening them both on the mattress. This used to be Erica and Mark's bed, it should feel weirder. At least the papers aren't still on the kitchen table. 

"Yes," Franky whispers in her ear, before biting at the juncture of Erica's neck and her shoulder.

 

Before today, Franky was mostly hypotheses in Erica's mind. 

What if I hadn't pushed her back? Being pushed up against prison walls, keening, tearing the skin of Franky's lips with her own, her head banging against the door. They would've got caught eventually, Erica knows that. It didn't keep her from thinking about it. When she was riding Mark, to get into it, she would think about Franky biting her, leaving traces to make sure she wasn't the only one who remembered she was here. 

When she was a lawyer. Franky in a suit, standing in front of a judge, always on the edge of getting thrown in contempt but successful, genius even, like only Franky can be, devilishly smart and cocky and victorious. Franky with spiky heels, her hair swept up in a bun. Her eyes slanting to look at Erica. _Miss Davidson,_ her easy drawl, dirty and electrifying. _Long time no see._

In the back of the church at Erica's wedding. There to laugh when Erica didn't trip over her vows, because she knows Erica would've if she were in love - she's not that comfortable with emotion, usually. Not even bothering to try and catch the bouquet, instead reaching up to catch the bride. _You're slipping, Erica._ A stolen kiss that would've tasted of sugary wedding cake. Too much sugar, actually, but Erica hadn't bothered to choose the cake herself, so it served her well. She had to lie - I thought you'd like it, honey -, pretend she found it delicious. 

And now, Franky is a writer. Even without her leather jacket she still looks dangerous, drinking water with cupped hands in Erica's bathroom, laughing when she gets some on her stomach.

"I do freelance legal advice to pay the bills," she tells Erica, and the only thing Erica can think about are those suits she must hide in the back of her closet and that Erica might like to see, hanging on Franky's frame like she was made for them. 

"Come here," Erica says. 

It's strange, how free she feels. She rolls one of Franky's nipples between her hands and wonders at how natural it feels, then Franky kissing and biting her way down her thighs, less angry but still feral, feline, somewhat unfathomable...

And then, then, when Erica's folded over with Franky's fingers inside of her and her face, her eyes, her mouth so close Erica thinks they're going to be seared into her mind for the rest of her life, she says, "Erica," like she can't really believe it.

 

(That conversation is going to happen. 

"You hurt me," Franky will say. "You were such a coward."

And - "No," Erica will almost shout, knee-jerk. "You don't know how it was."

"I was there!"

"It was difficult for me, Franky. You were a _prisoner_ , for god's sake. Did you ever think about that?"

"About the fact that I was a prisoner? Yes, yes I did. You were in denial."

But they've never been very good at talking, anyway. Talking about feelings. They can tease, flirt and make innuendos, they can even do the small talk thing. In the end they'll end up fucking like smashing plates at the ground. It'll always be on the edge of too much, that thing with Franky. Doesn't mean it can't be good, just means you have to be careful, not to get too swept up in it. Erica likes that. 

If she says it - _I love you, move in with me, I need you, I do_ \- it'll be with the intensity of a hurricane, with a violently thumping heart, Erica just knows it.)

 

"Call me."

She has a card. Franky Doyle, it says, just that, as though she couldn't really chose what she was, in the end - and isn't that fitting? 

She kisses Erica, hot and hard.

Erica waits until she's gone, and then she sits at her desk with a glass of wine and types her name into Google and orders the first book that pops up on Amazon. She feels like laughing, for some reason.


End file.
